Monday April 05 2004
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Just after Christmas, twin 5-year-olds John and Benjamin Cazel pulled off one last holiday miracle. They came home from kindergarten, picked up a book and started reading it to their mother, Debbie.
A couple of years ago, Debbie Cazel's twin daughters, Amanda and Allison, didn't accomplish that same feat until they graduated to first grade at Chesak Elementary School in Huntley Unit District 158.
"I was blown away," Debbie Cazel said. "When my boys started kindergarten they could recite their ABCs, and that's about it. They came from nothing, and now they're reading."
John and Benjamin didn't use Hooked on Phonics, and they aren't necessarily smarter than their female siblings. Instead, they are the product of an education revolution - full-day kindergarten.
There is little doubt in the education community that full-day kindergarten is beneficial. School districts are developing full-day programs to reach less-prepared students early on. But costs and space limitations are also holding back some school districts from extending the kindergarten day.
The number of educational opportunities for children 5 years old and under has exploded in the last 20 years. More and more brain research and studies on early education are showing the abilities of young children have been underestimated for a long time.
As classrooms catch up to the science, children such as John and Benjamin Cazel are becoming the beneficiaries of the added attention.
Their success and similar achievements are part of the reason full-day kindergarten programs are rapidly spreading throughout the suburbs, Illinois and the country. Just in Illinois, the number of kindergarten students in a full-day program increased more than 45 percent in the last 20 years.
The federal No Child Left Behind education law is pushing school districts to improve learning at all grade levels. If they don't, a number of penalties, including loss of federal funding, await them.
Less prepared
Improving test scores isn't so easy when it comes to certain students. No Child Left Behind standards are just now loosening up in certain areas because children with low-income, limited-English backgrounds or special education needs often lag behind their peers in the learning curve.
Also, some school districts are finding children are coming to school more unprepared than before. That means more classroom time is spent on concepts such as the alphabet that children used to learn at home.
"It's getting worse and worse, said Steve Midlock, assistant superintendent for instruction at Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59. The district offers full-day kindergarten through a "school of choice" for parents who want their children to get extra attention.
"Parents don't take the time or don't have the time to read to their children anymore," Midlock said. "So the thought is that if they are not learning their colors and names and numbers at home, then we need to have more time to teach them that."
Most children can neither read nor write when they start kindergarten, but there are few national statistics tracking trends in how much kids know coming into school.
However, District 59's entrance exam measures knowledge of basic skills, such as being able to recognize what the letter B sounds like. District 59 kindergarten students are expected to know 20 letter sounds when they begin school. In the 2000-01 school year, students knew an average of 18 sounds. In the most recent testing, beginning kindergarten students knew an average of only 10 sounds.
Reaching them early
The first chance most school districts have at snagging more teaching time is kindergarten. Preschool programs offer another chance at reaching students early, but such programs are not offered as widely. The latest census numbers show 95 percent of 5- and 6-year-olds are in school. Only 52 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are in school.
Evolving research by educators from the early 1980s to today consistently shows kindergarten students can both withstand the rigors of a full school day and thrive in it. As a result, 15 states had mandated full-day kindergarten programs by 2002. More states, most recently Arizona, are quickly following the trend.
In Illinois, full-day kindergarten is optional for school districts. Those offering a full-day program must maintain a half-day version.
As the benefits of full-day kindergarten become apparent, more Illinois school districts are following the call of the full-day kindergarten piper. Only 2.3 percent of Illinois' schools offered full-day kindergarten in the 1980-81 school year. In 2001-02, 62 percent of schools offered it, and nearly half the kindergartners were in a full-day program.
Costs and benefits
For school districts, the move to full-day kindergarten can be a twofold benefit of better education and long-term savings.
Prospect Heights Elementary District 23 is looking to take advantage of both.
At least 20 percent of the school district's budget consistently goes to special education. That's a lot of cash for a district consistently spending more money than it takes in.
So school board member Tom Klingner is pitching a full-day kindergarten program for the district's at-risk students as part of a long-term solution.
"It gives teachers the opportunity to identify and give extra help through a longer school day," Klingner said. "If we can take the 18 percent (of students who now need special education programs) down to 10 or 12 percent, you've saved the district a ton of money. And, more importantly, those kids will be ready for high school by the time they leave us."
A similar setup exists in Lake Zurich Unit District 95. The district started a pilot extended-day kindergarten program for "at-risk" students three years ago. Students scoring below a certain level on an entrance exam are eligible for the program. About 50 children participate, and early tracking is showing increases in school performance so far, district officials said.
Some school districts want the full-day program but don't have the money for startup costs. District 23 is a relatively small school system, serving roughly 1,700 students. Naperville Unit District 203 is significantly larger with more than 19,000 students and 1,200 kindergarten students alone.
District 203 officials studied a full-day option and found nothing but pluses - except for the price tag. Like most school systems, District 203 found a full-day program would be at least twice as expensive as its current half-day program.
Because it offers only a half-day program, many District 203 parents opt for a full-day child-care program outside the district. Offering a more structured full-day kindergarten program would likely pull in many of those children. So to do it, the district estimates it would need 26 additional classrooms with teachers.
"That's the size of a whole school," said Susan Stuckey, principal of District 203's Highland Elementary. "Financially, it wasn't a possibility for us."
That reality isn't uncommon as a growing number of school districts are spending more money than they take in. It's led the Illinois Federation of Teachers and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, to put increased funding for full-day kindergarten on its lobbying platform.
Appropriate learning
For districts with enough startup cash, the question of what to offer in a full-day program is another obstacle. Anything involving change is often a hard sell at first. And what's "good for students" is a matter of opinion.
That's where research comes into play.
Not all kindergarten programs are created equally. Illinois does not require school districts to offer kindergarten because children are not required to be in school until they turn 7. Because it's not mandatory, there are no state standards for what a child should learn in kindergarten, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
Some full-day kindergarten critics, including some parents and tax watchdog groups, worry that full-day programs can sometimes amount to little more than taxpayer-funded baby-sitting. Others worry that the extra class time puts too much pressure on young children to learn and perform.
"They are not physiologically and psychologically ready for that long of a school day," said Allan Carlson, president of The Howard Center in Rockford. "Our society, broadly, is making it more difficult for children to get what they need, which is first and foremost time with their parents."
The center's mission is to promote the institution of families as a fundamental part of society.
"Children need time to be a child," Carlson said. "A glorified day-care center doesn't allow them to be children."
In a properly organized full-day program, those concerns have no basis, said Suzie Nall, a professor of early childhood education at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Nall said the growth of full-day kindergarten programs is a result of the education field waking up to the learning abilities of young children. Full-day kindergarten programs have arrived not so much because parents are working more, but because educators understand young children better, Nall said.
As far as what to offer, Nall said it's up to each school district and teacher to create a curriculum suitable for the children being taught. Full-day kindergarten should not be baby-sitting, high-pressure learning or a replacement for first grade. It's about letting the child learn what he or she is ready to learn.
"The school needs to be ready for the child, rather than the child being ready for the school," Nall said. "The program should accommodate the total child so that the child should be emotionally, intellectually stimulated and motor skills are allowed to develop."
That means hands-on, active learning mixed with play and rest time.
Students lead the way
Huntley Unit District 158 intended its full-day kindergarten to offer just a longer version of its half-day program.
In its first semester of existence, it hasn't turned out that way.
"The children have taken us in a different direction," said Chesak kindergarten teacher Meg Coppedge, who teaches John and Benjamin Cazel. "They want to learn more. I've taught for 18 years, and this is more than I would have ever imagined being able to teach a 5-year-old."
Because she spends nearly triple the time with them, Coppedge knows her students and their parents better than ever before. Graduating students in Coppedge's class know how to write sentences that make sense, read at a beginner's level and make friends. Those results have stripped any apprehension parents had about converting to full-day kindergarten.
"I'm amazed at some of the things she knows already," said Sheila Marcinkiewicz, whose daughter, Sydney, is in Coppedge's class. "My daughter has matured a lot. She's eager to learn and go to school in the morning. So you don't feel bad about having your kid there all day because you know she's with a good teacher."
GRAPHIC: What should children learn in kindergarten?
Illinois does not have learning standards for kindergarten. The Illinois State Board of Education is developing standards that most likely will be in line with what other states have in place.
Some common kindergarten learning expectations:
- Understand water can be solid, liquid or gas and change back and forth from one form to another.
- Identify the five senses and use them to observe common objects.
- Compare and sort common objects by color, shape, texture, size and weight.
- Know that people read and write from left to right and from top to bottom.
- Compare people, objects and events of today with those of the past.
- Use words related to location, direction and distance, such as here/there, over/under, left/right and up/down.
- Identify maps, what they are used for and the difference between land and water.
- Identify different kinds of jobs that people do.
- Learn what rules are and the consequences of breaking them.
- Recognize rhyming words.
- Identify sounds and blend them to make words.
- Discuss characters, setting and events of a story.
- Recognize that people use money to purchase goods.
- Understand the concepts of length, weight, temperature and time.
Sources: Indiana State Board of Education, California Department of Education, Virginia Department of Education.
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